


Gulf

by standalone



Series: Fucking Political Bullshit exR Coffeeshop AU [8]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Day Off, M/M, Marijuana, Phone-banking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-13
Updated: 2017-12-13
Packaged: 2019-02-14 06:39:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13002012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/standalone/pseuds/standalone
Summary: Sometimes your boss tells you to take a day off. Always say yes.





	Gulf

**Author's Note:**

> Full disclaimer: With minor exceptions, this whole piece was written through start to finish in a state of increasing stonedness. The revisions and posting took place under similar conditions. So if you come to this Fucking Political Bullshit series looking for highly refined works of depth and insight, give this one a miss. 
> 
> Otherwise, welcome back.

“Fuck,” Enjolras says at his midday breakfast, rereading the same news on his phone. It keeps being the same. He reloads, and still: the same as what he stayed up late last night calling and emailing and hoping against. 

Lamarque’s talking points for this morning were ready days ago; still, since waking, he’s confirmed all the scheduled emails are waiting in their queues and that Lamarque’s assistant is ready with today’s tweets before he texts the senator to make sure she doesn’t need anything more from him right now.

 **Lamarque:** Take the day, Enjolras

 **Lamarque:** We’ve captured everything we want to say

 **Lamarque:** We’ll have something new to say tomorrow, no doubt, but not this morning

Enjolras is not great at not having work in front of him. He might have pretended he had to work anyway, just because there’s comfort in what he knows, had he not been in the shower when those texts came in. 

When he came, wet-haired and ravenous, into the kitchen, Grantaire handed him his phone along with a cup of coffee. “Your boss says you’re off today,” he said, looking nearly as unsettled by this notion as Enjolras felt. 

Which leaves Enjolras swearing at the stupid stupid news on his phone and wondering what the hell he’s supposed to do.

“Eggs,” Grantaire says, sliding a plate of them in front of him. “Toast?”

And they eat, and Enjolras tries very hard to ask Grantaire questions about his friends and his exhibitions rather than making audible his internal screed against the assault to democracy that is a dead-of-night vote to expropriate the money of the masses so that our richest citizens can save quantities of wealth the rest of us can’t even fathom.

His success is middling at best. Maybe he keeps the words in, but he’s not always expert at holding in the feelings.

“Enj?” Grantaire says, taking his hand across the kitchen island when he apparently notices Enjolras’s inattention to whatever it is that he’s saying about the complexities of assembling large-scale kinetic artworks. He seems to see the cause immediately. “Sucks.”

Heck, of course he knew the cause. Enjolras went to bed muttering to himself and woke up muttering to himself and there’s no reason to imagine this muttering will cease until this corrupt regime topples, whenever the hell that may be.

Yesterday brought a little bit of hope, though. In a way, that just makes the despair worse.

“Maybe we’ll can his ass before he can sign anything into law?” Grantaire suggests.

Enjolras very much wishes this could be true. Why can’t we pause the government, when it’s so obviously on the verge of collapse, until we’ve scoured out the corrosion and shored up the supports once again? 

He can’t help himself. “In what universe does it make sense to permit this scourge of usurpers to govern fucking _anyone_? Why the fuck are we letting these jackasses make policy that will cost us decades—and livelihoods, and _lives_ —to undo?”

“My god,” Grantaire says, shaking his head and reaching for Enjolras’s dirty plate. “Do you even know you’re speeching at me, Enjolras? The senator’s right. You need a day off.”

It turns out that this is hard. Enjolras is not a person who checks out easily. At Grantaire’s insistence, they go for a walk around the neighborhood, but then Enjolras suggests they stop in for a little more coffee at the Musain, and in seconds he’s elbow-deep in fierce strategery with Combeferre and Musichetta, so this is hardly the thing. Grantaire persuades him to get a shot of whiskey added to his coffee, but when this fails to cool Enjolras’s fiery rhetoric, he drags him out after half an hour.

“This is no kind of break, man.”

They walk past the museum, and Grantaire shows Enjolras his favorite fish in the giant geometric ponds that dot the sculpture garden. “There’s Elizabeth,” he says, pointing at an inquisitive orange koi that’s poking its nose up through the lily pads near them in apparent hopes that they’ve brought snacks. “And Sherrod, and Kamala. They’re cool. Now _that_ guy—” he points at a sleek speckled fish that suddenly swims through to bump the others aside, “—that one’s Paul. What a shitbag.”

While Enjolras is very much in love with Grantaire about this, and does take his hand (even though this is technically Grantaire’s work, even if it _is_ the weekend) as a result, it’s also not very helpful in getting his mind off things. 

They get back to Enjolras’s apartment, and Enjolras is basically pacing the rug because refreshing his phone apps continues to be so deeply unfulfilling. 

“Come here a minute, Enjolras,” Grantaire says from down the hall. 

On Enjolras’s bedroom desk, he’s laid out what looks like a small apothecary. There are pills and tins and dropper bottles and tiny packets of what appear to be foodstuffs. 

“What’s up?” Enjolras asks, studying this, and then he knows. “Oh.”

“That’s right, Enj. I’m getting you stoned.”

Enjolras closes his eyes for a minute to contemplate the possibility. She doesn’t need him till tomorrow. All he’s doing is winding himself up, which helps no one. Being stoned is, in his limited experience, really pretty fun. Grantaire’s plan sounds, actually, great.

“Okay,” Enjolras says. 

“Really?” Grantaire’s whole face changes whenever the heavy eyebrows lift. Enjolras loves this about him, and should surprise him more often. “Uh. Awesome. So, you have some options here.” 

Enjolras lets Grantaire talk him through it all, but he knew from the get-go that he would ultimately agree to eat of the gold-wrapped chocolate bar at the far right of the array. 

“Nice choice,” Grantaire says, breaking off two small triangles and popping one into his own mouth. “I’m giving you about half a dose. If you’re not feeling it in an hour or two, we’ll reevaluate.”

*

An hour’s newsreading later, Enjolras finds himself increasingly aware of the physical sensation of breath. He has always been quite good at breathing, at least as good as the next person, but in this moment he finds himself struck by it. He can feel the air in its journey through his esophagus and into his lungs, the slow lingering pressure of it in his filled lungs, and its friendly departure. Also, all the places in his shoulders and neck that just minutes ago ached from endless hunching over his laptop suddenly feel awake and brilliant.

“I think it got me,” he grins.

“Fuck yeah,” Grantaire nods back. “Whatcha feeling?”

Enjolras wants to describe about the airways, but what comes out is about Grantaire instead. “So close to you.”

Grantaire’s smile is sideways and beautiful. 

This, too, Enjolras attempts to describe, but words are not coming easily, or in the right configurations. It is only with deep contemplation and a lot of self-questioning that he’s able to arrive at some kind of phrasing at all. “I like how you smile.”

“How do I smile?” Grantaire asks, far too quickly considering the amount of time Enjolras has sunk in his last statement. 

“Like. Like sharp things. But round. Soft.”

Grantaire laughs at him. 

“You’re laughing at me.”

Grantaire’s smile is too good to look at, so Enjolras looks down, but down is where Grantaire’s body is, and that is very nearly at least as good.

“Enj?” Grantaire asks. Enjolras realizes he must have been looking at Grantaire for quite a while, if the look Grantaire’s giving him is any kind of indication, and Grantaire watching him and waiting for him is a wonderful thing. 

He needs words to say this, but the words keep piling up in his lungs and his throat, so when he finally gets them out, there are a lot of them, and they are awkward and point in too many directions at once.

“I love you, Grantaire, do I say it enough? I love you, I love you, love that you take care of me and that you take me how I am. I want you to make me feel like you’ll take everything I’ll give. Take me. Fill me. My mouth. My ass. Oh god—" now that he’s thinking of it, it’s suddenly all he can think, "—I want you in me.”

Grantaire obligingly slides down his joggers to grant Enjolras access, and then Enjolras’s focus narrows and expands, for the next indeterminate stretch of time, to the soft feel of skin below his tongue and lips, the way his own pants press him hard to himself as he works Grantaire; peripherally, Grantaire’s occasional grunts. He hopes Grantaire likes this. Obviously Grantaire is not opposed. But he hopes he likes it.

 _He_ likes it so much. He could all day long feel Grantaire smooth and hard in his mouth, feel the superlative bones of Grantaire’s right hand infiltrate his hair to firmly touch his scalp and neck in five perfect points of pulsing intensity. Except Grantaire is thrusting up into him a little and that, too, he wants.

He pulls off, letting his hand keep up the stroking—all the way up till his thumb traces up the narrow fluted groove on the underside of the head, which Grantaire always seems to find particularly pleasant, and back down. 

“Yesss?” Grantaire asks. Enjolras thinks he is asking. It’s hard to say for certain; perhaps he’s been staring again. And perhaps Grantaire is just voicing support. And why wouldn’t he stare? Grantaire in a hoodie and these silly pants is already an unruly and glorious vista upon which to rest his gaze, and when he _also_ happens to be gasping and wild-eyed?

He wants to be had. But.

“If I stop sucking you so you can fuck me,” Enjolras complains, “I won’t have you in my mouth anymore.”

“A real conundrum,” Grantaire agrees. 

“I just—I want you to fuck me, a lot, but I also want a cock in my mouth.”

Somehow, because this is a day off and sometimes the stars align, this results in Enjolras bent over the couch with Grantaire fucking him from behind while teasing Enjolras’s lips and tongue with the tips of two sturdy, hard-callused fingers. God, those calluses. These are the hands of a person who could do anything. 

Enjolras runs his tongue over the knuckles and opens himself to take as much of Grantaire as he can.

 _Hold this in your breaths,_ he tells himself later, flopped hand-in-hand with Grantaire in the broad soft expanse of his bed. _Hold it in your lungs and body and mind. Have it with you forever when you need it, right there, always._

How could he possibly forget, when it is so unforgettably good?

* * *

 _Take a break_ , he tells himself, seven days later. He just hung up the phone from an awful awful conversation with a woman who yelled at him that he ought to be ashamed of himself, calling her asking her to vote for a murderer. “Imagine your wife was pregnant, young man, in her ninth month, and she decided to let someone rip that baby right out of her and kill it? That’s what _he_ wants.”

“I’m sure it’s not,” Enjolras said. He was about to encourage her to review the candidates’ statements on the matter, but she cut him off.

“I ain’t voting for a murderer who wants to take my guns away,” she went on, voice rising. “I’m a gun owner, locked and loaded. Ain’t no politician taking my guns.”

“Thank you for your time, ma’am,” Enjolras said, digging deep for the decorum required to let this go. “Have a good evening.”

He logged the call in the online tracker. Voting? Yes. For the right person? No. He clicks the Submit button and a new name and phone number pop up.

Enjolras lets out a long breath, willing other people’s hatred out of him. He exhales till his lungs are bleached fists, then he breathes back in. There, waiting for him in the first, most noticeable intake of air, he discovers again the memory of the other day. Grantaire wants so much for him to be happy.

With this in him, shittiness is so much less shitty.

Across the table from him, Grantaire seems to be sharing an easy laugh with his current conversation partner. “No sir,” he hears Grantaire say. “No, you got me, I’m not from your state, but I’m a United States citizen, like you, and, like you, I’m concerned about the direction our country’s headed in. ... Yeah, so concerned I’m spending my weekend calling you about it. ... Nope, no pay.” He laughs again. “I do appreciate your time, Mr. Watford, and I’m glad to hear you’ll be voting Tuesday.”

Grantaire hangs up and looks at him with a grin. “One more for the win column.”

“You’re so good at this.”

Grantaire shrugs. “Retail.”

Enjolras’s memory of Grantaire’s direct-service days is limited, but he’s pretty sure Grantaire was mostly an asshole behind the coffee counter. He must be visibly unconvinced by this explanation, because Grantaire flips him off and dials another potential voter. 

“I...” He wants to say so much to Grantaire right now. He wants to punch and curl up and fuck the world but mostly just to say _Grantaire, you are mine Grantaire, and that knowledge makes the awful tolerable._

“Tsshh,” Grantaire interrupts him brusquely, finger pointing. “Calls to make. We might actually take this one.”

**Author's Note:**

> At one point I got too stoned to keep going. Also I convinced myself that it was distinctly possible that I switched documents and was writing this in a Hermione/Pansy doc instead, in which case, I convinced myself that I would now be honor-bound to leave it in. Fortunately for Hermione and Pansy, everything turned out to be where it belonged, and I returned to this story another day.
> 
> Typing the word “usurpers” was a small internal quagmire from which I rejoice at having extracted myself alive.


End file.
